The government of Ukraine plans on April 27, 2018 approve a list of large facilities with assets worth over UAH 250 million for the privatization in 2018, acting Head of the State Property Fund (SPF) Vitaliy Trubarov has said. “At a meeting of the government to be devoted to the privatization scheduled for April 27 we will receive the finished list of large privatization and approve the requirements,” he said. Trubarov recalled that according to the new law on privatization that took effect on March 7, all facilities are divided into two groups: large and small. The fund makes decisions on the lists of small privatization. For this year the fund has approved a list of 660 small facilities.
The SPF head said that the sale of facilities in line with the new law will start after May holidays.
Trubarov also expressed opinion that in the coming five or seven years large Ukrainian companies like Ukrzaliznytsia or Ukrposhta would not be placed to the privatization lists.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) maintains its expectation that Ukraine will attract $2 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2018 and predicts the next tranche will be received at the beginning of the third quarter of 2018. “As for the next tranche of a loan, we believe that this will be possible at the beginning of the third quarter. However, this is rather a technical calculation in terms of the progress of negotiations and receipt of consents at the technical level,” Deputy NBU Governor Dmytro Solohub said at a briefing in Kyiv.
According to him, the NBU currently does not have any specific information about the date of the next visit of the IMF mission to Kyiv. At the same time, Solohub reported that the Ukrainian delegation planned to attend the Annual and Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.
“The traditional spring meetings of the IMF will be held at the end of next week, and the Ukrainian delegation will be present at them. These are not only negotiations with the [IMF] mission to discuss the [EFF] program, these are also meetings with other international organizations,” he said.
Prime Minister of Lithuania Saulius Skvernelis believes that Ukraine needs a high speed in carrying out reforms. He noted that old Europe, the old democracy “had decades to make changes in its countries.” And the new states, such as Lithuania, had to reform for 10 or less years and made changes quite quickly, he said in the framework of the panel discussion “Regional Cooperation: United by Common Goals” at the 11th Kyiv Security Forum on Thursday. “No matter how hard it is for you to hear this, but you must be faster, faster than we are,” the prime minister said.
The European Commission jointly with European alcohol producers intend to publish the Counterfeit and Piracy watch-list for Ukraine with the purpose of comabting counterfeit alcohol sale in the EU partner countries. The Ukrvodka association said in a press release that the European initiative is aimed at revealing online and private marketplaces that allow producing and selling counterfeit and smuggled goods in the countries, which are not members of the European Union.
“The Ukrainian illegal alcohol market reaches 60% and withdraws about EUR 360 million from the budget. The European Commission plans to officially publish the Counterfeit and Piracy watch-list this year and update it regularly,” the association said.
According to the European Commission, the illegal market is a “concrete scourge for the economy,” it hinders investment and employment in the sectors related to the production of alcohol.
According to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), about 5% of EU imports worth EUR 85 billion annually are unsafe counterfeit goods, mainly from neighboring countries.
According to the report, the attention of Europeans was attracted by the investigation of the Ukrainian anti-corruption human rights organization. According to their data, half of the state-owned distilleries produce illegal alcohol, and illegal vodka is also produced at distilleries: 10 out of 30 distilleries produce counterfeit goods.
Former head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) Yuriy Alekseyev (2005-2014) has concerns about the current national policy in the space industry and the absence of the state program to maintain and develop the sector. “On the eve of Cosmonautics Day, I learned that the Ukrainian space agency has neither the concept of the industry nor the action plan for the near future, which is a very bad trend. It means that we do not need anyone as the industry and we are not interesting for the government in solving national tasks and problems. Despite the fact that many words and good intentions about the revival of the former glory and power of the Ukrainian space were mentioned during the appointment of the new head of the SSAU,” the former SSAU head said in an article posted on the website of the nongovernmental organization Space Initiatives Center (SIC).
“Forty years of work in the aerospace industry of the Soviet Union and the state of Ukraine allow me to think so and speak. From the very first days of Ukraine’s independence, the then leaders of the state thought and cared about people and enterprises that had never been controlled by Kyiv. L.Kravchuk, V.Masol, L.Kuchma, V.Pustovoitenko, O.Kuzmuk, P.Hermanchuk and many others understood that this is the intellect of science, both among scientists and engineers, and among the working class. We got an opportunity to work actively and contact with the leading aerospace enterprises and agencies around the world,” he said.
Alekseyev said that the history of the formation of the space industry of independent Ukraine was not easy, and included both successes and losses. Among them is the disruption of plans for cooperation with the United States on the launch of low-Earth orbiting satellites with the help of the Zenit-2 launch vehicle (LV) designed and produced in Ukraine under the Irridium program and the successful implementation of a large-scale international project on the commercial launches of satellites from the Sea Launch pad using the same Zenit LV.
“We made more than 30 successful launches, but at the same time there were failures and partially fulfilled tasks. Ukraine earned about $1 billion through Pivdenmash and Pivdenne [Design Bureau] thanks to the Sea Launch company,” he said.
According to Alekseyev, the work done by the industry enterprises in the field of satellite systems creation contributes to the successes of Ukraine. This is the creation of the Earth remote sensing satellite for Egypt following the international tender that was launched in 2007 by the EgyptSat spacecraft and the creation and launch of its own Sich-2 satellite with a target resolution of 2.5 meters in 2011. These works on EgyptSat and Sich-2 showed the world that Ukraine is able to design, manufacture, prepare for launch and operate spacecraft. The volume of its own work in the creation of these devices and ground infrastructure reached 75-80%,” the ex-head of the SSAU said.
“But this is all in the past. The last years of leapfrog and the replacement of the agency’s directors [SSAU], four in three years, have led to the fact that the industry stands on the verge of collapse,” Alekseyev said.
Thus, the ex-head of the SSAU criticized “the loud statements of some heads of space enterprises and agencies at briefings and press conferences in Canada and Japan on the construction of launching sites in Canada, then in Scotland, then in Australia,” which, he said, do not do honor to the State Space Agency of Ukraine and the leadership of the country.
At the same time, Alekseyev connects his hopes for positive changes in the space industry with 2019.
“I hope that the year 2019, the year of the 75th anniversary of Pivdenmash, will be the year of the revival of Sea Launch’s launches, the year of completion of the work on the creation of a Ukrainian war missile,” he said.
Consumer confidence index in Ukraine is growing for the fifth consecutive quarter: in Q4 2017 it reached 61 points, which is 3 points more than in Q3 2017 and 9 points more than in Q4 2016, according to the Nielsen global consumer confidence report. “Consumer behaviors are evolving. However, we see how demanding they are in selection of goods, services and brands,” Managing Director of Nielsen in Ukraine and Belarus Vaios Dimoragas said.
According to him, having a limited budget, consumers want impressions and positive emotions from shopping, the Internet helps them make the right choice before buying.
The index is calculated by three indicators: the consumers’ assessment of the prospects for the labor market in the next 12 months, the level of financial wellbeing in the next 12 months, the willingness to spend money at the moment.
The increase in the consumer confidence index in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to the third quarter of the same year is due to the improvement in the indicators for all three indicators.
According to the document, the absolute majority of Ukrainians continues to believe that the country is in a state of crisis, while the number of those has increased slightly: 93% – in the fourth quarter 2017 against 92% – in the third quarter 2017.
The number of consumers, who believe that the country will not get out of the crisis in the next 12 months, fell to 66% at the end of 2017 with a 74% quarter before.
On the first and second places in the list of concerns of Ukrainians are still feelings about the growth of utilities tariffs and war: 29% and 28% of consumers are worried about this, respectively. The top five reasons for experiencing also include rising prices for food, economy and health, according to the study.
According to it, 26% of Ukrainian consumers do not have free funds after buying essential goods. Those, with whom they stay, spend free money on new clothes (37%), make savings (29%), have fun outside the house (26%).
The value of the index above 100 points indicates the prevalence of optimists in the country, pessimists are below 100 points, and the value of 100 points is about the balance between optimistic and pessimistic expectations from the future.
